Power out of Africa

On the face of it, the idea of Africa providing a model of sustainable energy development to the world seems an unlikely one. Eighty percent of the world's 1.5 billion people living without electricity live in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the African Development Bank. The continent's scarcity of grid links would seem to be an intractable obstacle to Africa's goals of improving development and alleviating poverty. Yet, Africa possesses significant solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower resources that have only barely been tapped, and which give the continent the potential to offer different models of sustainability

By

Andrea Chipman

December 6, 2011

African countries have a huge opportunity to turn their energy infrastructure deficits into an advantage, both for the continent itself and potentially for the rest of the world. Renewable technologies that use wind and solar are the gateway to this opportunity, but much work still needs to be done. Africa is in many ways a blank canvas for renewables.

The lack of comprehensive grid connections means most Africans currently get their power from diesel generators at prices of around $1 per kilowatt-hour, compared with...